what paste for delid?

THRESHIN

2[H]4U
Joined
Sep 29, 2002
Messages
3,621
i have a skylake 6600k and should be doing the delid and reapply thermal paste soon....wondering what paste is good to use?

i have some arctic MX-4 that has been sitting around for a while now, still seems as good as the day i got it. should i be using something more up to date? if we're talking only a couple degrees, i could care less.

i'll be doing the razor blade method....any tips? last time i did this was an opteron 165 which i ran naked :p

this will be on water...my old custom setup. i was thinking of the silicone that i've seen used to reattach the heat spreader. wonder if epoxy would be more appropriate?

any thoughts would be great, be nice to get my ducks in a row before destroying my cpu.
 
That MX-4 is still the best TIM i think, even better then liquid metal, i wish i still had some got something else with my new build because I forgot of the amazing MX-4, anyway there is a good vid by Kyle about de liding and re liding

you defiantly should get a tool for removing that heat speared and with a razor blade you can damage your CPU core and traces and dont forget to leave air gap when resetting your lid.

FYI I have never done this so take every thing i say with a shovel full of salt.
 
i have a skylake 6600k and should be doing the delid and reapply thermal paste soon....wondering what paste is good to use?

i have some arctic MX-4 that has been sitting around for a while now, still seems as good as the day i got it. should i be using something more up to date? if we're talking only a couple degrees, i could care less.

i'll be doing the razor blade method....any tips? last time i did this was an opteron 165 which i ran naked :p

this will be on water...my old custom setup. i was thinking of the silicone that i've seen used to reattach the heat spreader. wonder if epoxy would be more appropriate?

any thoughts would be great, be nice to get my ducks in a row before destroying my cpu.

I delided my 6700k and 7700k. See if you can get a tool, I agree, or use the vice method, and pray. For relid paste, I just used AS5 as I had it on hand. I think the MX-4 would be fine. Some will say that liquid metal stuff would be better, but I think 90% of what makes the delid is cleaning off the crap intel tim, and in my case the base of the spreader, where it contacts the substrate was quite uneven, so I lapped that down a touch and made sure to clean off the substrate of the cpu from old gasket material. Once that is done, you should have a good Z height to allow full cpu die seating to the head spreader. I use black permatex ultra gasket maker, use very little and I don't have a relid tool, so I improvise. Using a c clamp, I put the cpu on a little round spray cap I found from some can of cleaner or w/e. Keeps the caps off the surface of w/e you will be using to help clamp. Then I put a small socket over the middle of cpu die. This is all assuming u've applied your TIM and gasket maker(and leave air gap as above poster noted). Then I get the clamp setup so it's just barely at all putting pressure on the socket. The clamp itself is a fair bit of weight so I only snug it up enough so it won't move about, too much pressure can bend the substrate which could screw up your tim/cpu seating or worse yet gorrilla pressure could break substrate/cpu. IMO unless your temps are super crap, I'd save the hassle. For kaby lake IMO it makes more difference, at least in my experience. I only got 75mhz extra on my 6700k delid/relid.
 
That MX-4 is still the best TIM i think, even better then liquid metal
You must have been under a rock for some time.

Op, Gelid Extreme is a great delid paste.
Your MX-4 isnt bad either.
You cant go wrong with any of the well reviewed pastes.
 
You must have been under a rock for some time.

Op, Gelid Extreme is a great delid paste.
Your MX-4 isnt bad either.
You cant go wrong with any of the well reviewed pastes.

Lol your right, I have not bought thermal past since 2012, last time I looked MX-4 was pretty much the best but i guess that has changed and the last time a did anything with a CPU i used the rest of mine and recently ended up getting Gelid Extreme because new egg recommended it, i was in a rush to finish my purchase before the MOBD I selected when out of stock so it's nice to know the TIM i got in a hurry was not bad stuff, btw sry saying MX-4 was better then liquid metal i thought i read that some were and probably should have verified before i said something
 
thanks for the input guys. i do have a friend who has access to a 3d printer so maybe i'll go that route. i've seen design files around here somewhere....

i'll probably just go with my MX-4 if i do this, mostly because i'm cheap :p

my reason for doing this is the temps of this processor while under load are quite high. i'm hitting 55ºC at stock. while that doesn't sound terrible at all, i have this thing on water....a custom setup at that. D5 pump, tripple 120mm rad and i have an old apogee GT block that i jimmy rigged on it. yes the video is in that, but it hits the CPU and then GPU after. GPU runs much cooler...970 GTX.
 
well IMO I'd try it oc'd first. You'll void warranty and could goof something up.
 
haha. Yeah I agree, but tbh my cpu is finiky tho, and while I initially though 5ghz was stable I ended up getting some odd behavior. I've now backed it down to 4.8 as I can run a lot lower voltage and feel safer overall, plus don't notice any difference in game(CSGO). If you're going for absolute best oc/temps then go for it. Otherwise, save your warranty IMO
 
I did a pretty extensive research session on pastes.. you want MX4 still to this day. Yes others perform better in sub zero temp situations on benchmark graphs. But if you want the best non-conductive, proven paste that always performs with the best stuff out there I'd reach for MX4 every single time. Even of the pastes that are intended for ambient temp cooling, some dry up over time while MX4 is guaranteed for 8 years minimum. This has been tested and verified by multiple sources even on this forum over the years as well. That's worth a lot.

Then on top of it, if you're more than just your system, MX4 comes in larger quantities than most too. 65G tubes if needed so it's a good choice for individuals and system builders.
 
Thermal Grizzley Conductonaut is also very good stuff if you're not afraid of conductive paste.
 
I went with CLU, I decided if I was going to bother with delidding I might as well spend the $12. I read a lot about temps rising when using regular paste. Some people said no matter how many times they tried the temps would rise over time, other people said they never saw a temp rise. I didn't find any reports of CLU temps rising.

It might have to do with how the IHS sits. Mine sits on the CPU die and I can put a piece of paper under the space between the PCB and IHS. Others said their IHS rests on the PCB and doesn't make contact with the die. People reports in that case that relidding with super glue was better than RTV because it is thinner and kept the IHS closer to the die.
 
Solid choice. CLU is proven. That's a factor people discard too easily, and it's important unless you're into reapplying paste all the time. That's why temps go up on others and less of the time on CLU. SiliconLottery uses CLU because they have 5+ years of data on it. It's probably my personal top pick from the conductive pastes. For sealing I'd personally go with RTV and simply be very light with it instead of super glue.
 
Solid choice. CLU is proven. That's a factor people discard too easily, and it's important unless you're into reapplying paste all the time. That's why temps go up on others and less of the time on CLU. SiliconLottery uses CLU because they have 5+ years of data on it. It's probably my personal top pick from the conductive pastes. For sealing I'd personally go with RTV and simply be very light with it instead of super glue.

I am more interested in CLU.
My delid hasnt gone so well because my lid appears to not be flat on the inside which always caused 2 cores to be 10C higher temp, even before the delid.
I hoped the delid would sort this out and at first it appeared to.

Before the delid I could get 4.6GHz (6700K) that worked fine but wasnt rock stable under testing.
After the delid (with Gelid Extreme) I can get 4.7GHz rock stable with all cores at the same temp at first but then drops to 4.6GHz rock stable after a few weeks, temps on 2 cores again become much higher. (With MX-3 paste it took a few days for the same to happen)
The delid has helped by getting 4.6GHz rock stable but I really want to see what this chip can do.

My main concerns are:
How much damage occurs when you have to clean up CLU?
How long before it degrades enough to need changing.

Any help is appreciated.
 
Solid choice. CLU is proven. That's a factor people discard too easily, and it's important unless you're into reapplying paste all the time. That's why temps go up on others and less of the time on CLU. SiliconLottery uses CLU because they have 5+ years of data on it. It's probably my personal top pick from the conductive pastes. For sealing I'd personally go with RTV and simply be very light with it instead of super glue.
The siliconlottery website says they use Thermal Grizzly Conductonaut and not CLU.
  • Stock thermal paste is replaced with Thermal Grizzly Conductonaut liquid metal.
 
CLU and Conductonaut are basically the same thing sold by different companies. good friend of mine used CLU on his 980 Ti's and cpu, i've been using Conductonaut. performance is identical.

the only reason to NOT use liquid metal on a delid is if your doing sub ambient on the CPU but if you are doing that you should already know this.
 
CLU and Conductonaut are basically the same thing sold by different companies. good friend of mine used CLU on his 980 Ti's and cpu, i've been using Conductonaut. performance is identical.

the only reason to NOT use liquid metal on a delid is if your doing sub ambient on the CPU but if you are doing that you should already know this.
I did not know that! Of course, I now may be lazy and get siliconlottery to do my delid :p
 
Der8auer seriously overbuilds his delidder tools. i've got a rockit 88 and 99. was kind of skeptical doing sky-x would be just as easy with the rockit 99 as 1151 is on the 88 but turns out it is and the only thing harder about doing the big chips is cleaning up all that excess glue intel uses.
 
The siliconlottery website says they use Thermal Grizzly Conductonaut and not CLU.
  • Stock thermal paste is replaced with Thermal Grizzly Conductonaut liquid metal.

Yeah, I'd still go for CLU over anything from ThermalGrizzly. From SiliconLottery directly- http://www.overclock.net/t/1632722/...vs-thermal-grizzly-conductonaut#post_26175352
That was posted in late June of this year, so if they switched it appears it was done very recently and for financial reasons mostly. The 1C doesn't really matter and is margin of error stuff.

5 years of data, per that post vs 1 year of data. Obviously they're saying 1 year is good-enough for them to switch but I'll pay the extra for CLU if it's my chip.
 
My 8700k is a hot potato chip for sure at 5.1ghz all core. I am thinking of getting a rockit as well and delidding. But I too am unsure what the best thermal solution is when I relid it.
 
My main concerns are:
How much damage occurs when you have to clean up CLU?
How long before it degrades enough to need changing.

Any help is appreciated.

I tried CLU on my GTX970, but the cooler wasn't making contact and I didn't want blob tons of CLU on it fearing that it might run out and short the components next to the core. It cleaned off very easily with q-tips and rubbing alcohol. I read it will stain copper over time but it doesn't cause any damage.
I did my 6700k in May with CLU and havent had any increase in temps.
 
I drove through Lucas to get to Tickey Creek park when I fished Lavon.

Anyways, where can I get one of these delid tools?
 
I tried CLU on my GTX970, but the cooler wasn't making contact and I didn't want blob tons of CLU on it fearing that it might run out and short the components next to the core. It cleaned off very easily with q-tips and rubbing alcohol. I read it will stain copper over time but it doesn't cause any damage.
I did my 6700k in May with CLU and havent had any increase in temps.
I had a quick play last night to see if I could get away with direct die without shaving the socket.
Soooo close.
With the old paste left on (a very thin layer) the water block put an impression on most of the CPU die but not enough to hold it to the pins.
During this I noticed that the die is scratched/scuffed from testing with a loose lid.
Pulling the cpu lever down causes a shift of the lid across the cpu.
I thought the heatsink paste would be a good enough lube but clearly not.

Sadly this means no metal heatsink paste as its possible the die is exposed in places.
And I better stop playing around before it breaks.
 
Last edited:
Used CLU on my 6700k, dropped temps 10-20c (from hottest to coolest core), no regrets. Seems to have amazing heat transfer, the heatsink actually gets warm now, whereas before the temps were higher, and HS cold.
 
I've done a bunch of delids and used CLU so far for all of them. I wouldn't use it for anything else though as it can be a real PITA to clean up. The Gelid extreme or Cunductonaut are also great.

If you use a razor blade be very, very careful because you can easily scratch the PCB and/or damage the core. I'd recommend watching some videos or better yet buy a delid tool. I just got the rockit88 for peace of mind.
 
Conductonaut under the lid, Kryonaut on top....
 
Lot of good information here- now that I picked up a 1080Ti, I'm going to look harder at OC'ing my 6700k...
 
Back
Top